


hit me with your best shot

by homewarddove



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bar Room Brawl, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Gendry is a Baratheon, Joffrey is NOT a Baratheon, Mechanic&Lonely!Sandor, birthday kisses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 19:22:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18580984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homewarddove/pseuds/homewarddove
Summary: Sansa Stark was never one for bars. In fact, she avoided them if at all possible. But her best friend, Margaery was desperate from some attention from Sansa’s brother, Robb and she was nothing if not helpful when it came to forcing two people to fall in love.Sandor Clegane avoided public places if at all possible. The staring, the judgement, the pity. It did nothing but piss him off, but that annoying little Stark girl who always came in to visit her boyfriend Gendry, had somehow convinced him that just because it was his birthday meant that they just HAD to meet at , one of the last true bars in town, for drinks. As long as she was paying he could give a shit.But a lot happens at Oathkeeper's.au meet ugly : we were all hanging out at a bar when some idiots that i know came in looking for a fight, you couldn’t help but defend me but somehow i ended up in the middle of it and you accidentally hit me and now you feel awful but honestly i’m just glad someone finally scared those idiots away





	hit me with your best shot

**Author's Note:**

> hi for the first time since...oh, 2015!!!  
> so glad to be back. so glad to be writing.  
> and so glad to be jumping back in with these characters.  
> a couple years ago i binged six seasons of this show in two weeks & my life hasn't been the same.  
> enjoy.
> 
> this episode brought to you by bar room playlists, wild cherry pepsi & ncis running in the background of my living room.

 

“Sans, I swear this is the night. I can feel it,” Listening to Margaery say that for the maybe 20th time in the hour that she’d been plaiting and curling Sansa’s hair before they were due to leave for The Oathkeeper Bar could only bring a small smile to her face. Her best friend Margaery had been in love with Sansa’s older brother, Robb, for as long as the two girls had known each other, so at least since their freshman year of college. And Marg had never been short of schemes and plans to get in the same room as him, but this may have been the only plan that Sansa had actively participated in.

 

“It very well may be, Marg,” Sansa replied, turning to smile at the beautiful woman who was analyzing her appearance in the mirror of Sansa’s bathroom as she set the curling wand aside, completing her best friend’s hair with an absent minded spritz of hairspray. Sansa wouldn’t say she was necessarily looking forward to going out to the bar tonight, they’d kind of left a bad taste in her mouth after all the time she’d spent in one or another with her awful ex-boyfriend, Joffrey. But this was important to Margaery, and it was important to her. She truly believed her brother and her best friend could be great together, if Robb opened his eyes enough to see the Tyrell girl as anything other than Sansa’s friend, and Margaery could get out of her head enough to just...“Just be yourself.” 

 

“Be myself?” Margaery turned to look at Sansa incredulously, “Sansa, I’ve been waiting for this night for most of my adult life, the chance to finally get into your brother’s pants...and heart,” She tacked on under the unblinking stare of vibrant blue eyes. “I’m not going to potentially screw it up by  _being myself_ , I’m going to be his dream woman tonight, I’m going to be everything he’s ever dreamed of. Tonight, Robb Stark will be mine.” 

 

“Okay, creepiness aside. You know I would be thrilled for you and my brother to get together. He’s been single for the past year, and not that he’s lacked dates- oh, don’t give me that look, you’ve had plenty of dates yourself - but the girls he’s been seeing have been awful. And I’ve always thought you guys would be great together. The two people I love the most in the world.” Sansa pushed Margaery’s fretting hands away from herself and pushing the hair from her face, cupped her cheeks and looked deep into her eyes. “And yourself...is amazing. Robb would be lucky to have you just as you are. Understand?” 

 

“Sansa…” Icy blue eyes locked onto deeper, darker blue ones. “If you had a dick, I’d fuck you right now.” 

 

“Oh, Margaery,” Sansa laughed pushing her friend away even as she attempted to pull her back into a hug. “C’mon, we don’t want to be late, Arya will never let me hear the end of it.” 

 

* * *

 

The little Stark girl was absolutely out of her fucking mind. Sandor had that one thought as he sat with the little bitch and her awful little boyfriend at the bar of the only worthwhile drinking hole in King’s Landing. 

“Oh c’mon, Clegane, lighten up. Have some fun! It’s your birthday!” Arya leaned towards him and threw a small arm over his massive shoulders, sliding a pint of some light swill in front of him. The older man shrugged her off his shoulders while he shushed her, pushing the beer away. 

 

“If you’re buying me drinks tonight, you’d better be buying something fucking decent.” Sandor gave a nod at the big woman behind the bar, who knew his preference well enough. He didn’t often drink or do anything in public, but the big woman’s husband, Tormund, was one of the few men at the car shop they worked at that he could tolerate and some nights drinking here was better than drinking alone. At least here they had good drink, an almost suitable playlist of music and for as much as Tormund, the ugly ginger, liked to talk, his wife, the owner of this fine establishment, didn’t. “And quiet your idiot mouth. No one here needs to know that I’m one year closer to the fucking grave.” 

 

“A man after my own heart,” Arya teased, rubbing Sandor’s hair affectionately as he brushed her off again, then leaning back to rest against Gendry’s chest, smiling up at him mischievously and rolling her eyes at his disapproving look. She loved teasing the huge brooding man, known around the garage as “The Hound”, for the way he doggedly worked on a vehicle’s problem until it was solved and the job done. Three years ago, after graduating high school, when Gendry had started working at his father’s business, Baratheon’s Auto Shop, Arya had been in awe of the giant of a man that everyone seemed to go out of their way to stay out of his. Arya had decided then and there on that first day she visited that she would find someway to work her presence into his life, and three years of dropping into the shop, delivering lunches, planning after work social events and generally overdoing it, had apparently worked. Because for the first time, Sandor Clegane had agreed to come out with her and Gendry, and what a bonus that it was to celebrate his birthday. 

 

“Here comes your sister, m’lady.” Gendry announced in a whisper to Arya’s ear, his lips puckering to kiss it when he spoke her pet name. The youngest Stark girl turned in her bar stool to see her beautiful sister making her way in, with her best friend and sidekick, Margaery Tyrell in tow. The two redheads were by far the most classically beautiful women this bar had seen in quite some time, as evidenced by the way almost every man turned to crane their necks to follow them as they made their way from the main entrance to the bar where their group was waiting. “Hey, Sansa.”

 

“Hi, Gendry! How are you? You look well.” Sansa greeted the man she hoped she’d one day call brother-in-law with a hug and a kiss to the cheek while Margaery greeted Arya. Gendry and her sister had been dating since high school and Sansa sometimes still couldn’t fathom how sweet Gendry could put up with her spitfire of a sister. She turned to Arya as Gendry answered her that he was doing well. Tired and ready for a few drinks, but well. She and Arya had never been particularly close growing up, Sansa preferring Robb’s or their mother’s company, while all Arya ever wanted to do is run around outside with Jon, or Bran, before the accident, and Rickon. But in their early twenties they’d found their own special brand of sisterhood, both moving away from Winterfell, from their family, to King’s Landing to forge their own path, where they weren’t just “one of those Stark children”. And now they saw each other at least once a week, if they could make it happen. 

 

“Hey, Princess.” Arya greeted, pulling Sansa in for a hug and accepting her kiss to the cheek. “I want you to meet someone. This is-” 

 

“Robb!” They both turned their attention to the entrance where their eldest brother was entering the bar, followed by their cousin, Jon, and Robb’s best friend, Theon. Margaery’s greeting had caught their notice right away and landed a huge smile on Robb’s face as they made their way over to where the large group kept growing. 

 

“Hey, Margaery,” Robb pulled his sister’s amazingly beautiful friend into a confident hug, his heart beating faster when he felt her arms come around to embrace him briefly before pulling back and flipping her long, beautiful hair over one shoulder. “You look great.” 

 

“Alright you two. We all know you’re going to end up fucking before the night is through, but don’t start off too strong. I want to make sure I have some entertainment for when I’m eating Brienne’s famous nachos later.” The group laughed at Arya’s crude comment, even Robb and Margaery, pretending it wasn’t as awkward as they felt it was. “Alright, let’s get you all some drinks, so I can feel a little less sad at being three deep already.” 

 

* * *

“Ahhh, there you are, you big oaf,” Sandor wanted to groan when he heard the voice coming from his right side towards the bar’s end, where the door was that led to the back kitchen. When he turned his attention to it, he saw the man one could arguably say was his best friend coming from the kitchen with a apron tied around his waist. 

 

“There you are, you stupid cu-” Sandor cut himself off when out of his peripheral vision he saw Arya’s pretty sister turn her head around at the sound of his voice. He’d stayed pretty much out of their conversations and merriment the entire night, as was his preference, steadfastly ignoring any attempts by Arya or Gendry to pull him into the group. He could almost admit to enjoying himself. His drinks were steady and paid for, no one felt the need to join the lonely guy at the bar since there was a rather raucous group surrounding him, and he’d kept his back to them all night, so he’d had no one staring at the unsightly right side of his face. But then, here was Tormund Giantsbane, come to ruin his good time. 

 

“I could almost have been fooled that you have friends, Dog, with all these young people surrounding you.” Tormund commented, pulling up the last bar stool to the right of Sandor and lifting a hand in greeting to the distracted group of kids sitting behind them. 

 

“Too fucking young for me to be keeping company with.” Sandor responded, turning himself further to face Tormund and disassociate himself from the group. 

 

“Aye. So how has your birthday celebration been going?” The ginger man asked, even as his eyes scanned the bar, looking for any fools who would dare to start trouble in his wife’s establishment, his eyes landing on a rowdy group of lads, eyeing the lovely red-headed Stark girl and her pretty friend as if they were piece of meat, or trophies to be won, even though the elder Stark boy had his arm wrapped around his sister’s friend. “Think you’ll be having any birthday company tonight?” Tormund teased, eyes lighting up with mischief at the grimace that he pulled from his friend’s face and waiting for his sure to be hilarious and foul mouthed response, his attention pulled away just long enough that he didn’t notice Sansa had arisen to change the song on the jukebox just across the room, and he certainly didn’t notice a notorious dark-haired evil prick getting up from his table to follow her. 

 

* * *

 

Brienne was happy with how this Friday night was panning out at her establishment. Sure, there was the usual amount of up to no good lads drinking the night away when they should’ve been getting back home to their women, or in some unfortunate cases, their mothers; but there were also some groups that brought her sheer joy to serve. The Stark group being the most prominent, seeing as how they were taking up half the seating at her bar and two tables immediately behind it, chairs pulled in this direction and that so they could all be seated to see each other in the configuration they most desired. There was the group of older gentlemen that used Friday nights to commiserate about the hell their wives had put them through during the week, now that they were retired, she always appreciated their stories of their times in the shipping and packaging trade, and she certainly appreciated the marinated onion recipe that Mr. Davos Seaworth had shared with her that she served with every chicken roast she did for suppers on Sunday evenings. But there were also groups that would’ve made her hackles rise, had she any, and it was this sixth sense that pulled her attention away from where her husband was speaking animatedly at his friend, Sandor Clegane, and over to the jukebox where the young and beautiful Sansa Stark stood, pushed up against the wall next to the machine, being crowded by young Ramsay Bolton, who had been warned time and time again that he would receive a sound beating if he didn’t learn his lesson about unwanted advances. 

 

“Tormund,” One sharp bark towards her husband as she was already springing into action, coming out from behind the bar and reaching to tear off her serving apron was all it took to get him out of his stool and right behind her, coming to the defense of the young girl who it looked like had just taken a open palm to the cheek of her unwanted suitor. 

 

Things moved in slow motion as the entirety of the Stark group rose to their feet, Robb, Theon, Jon and Arya springing into motion when they heard the smack that their sister’s hand had made against the fuming young man’s face. It seemed like no one could move fast enough to react to the appalling scene of Bolton’s hand coming up to grasp the beautiful woman by her beautiful, perfect hair, having only a few seconds to pull on it and land a smack to her stunned cheek before he was being pulled back rather violently by a furious Tormund Giantsbane. 

 

Sansa didn’t know where to look first, seeing Brienne striding towards her quickly even as the awful man refused to relinquish his grip on her hair and she was pulled sharply towards him again as her brother, Robb reached him and raised his fist. The next few seconds seemed a whirlwind of action as the vile man’s friends seemed to rally up against her family and she was whisked away to the corner where she knew the women’s bathroom was by Brienne, who was guiding her with one hand to her back and the other clutching her arm, her hand catching the taller blonde’s in a fearsome and unrelenting grip. 

 

The first thing her eyes could focus on in the last four minutes was her own image in the mirror of the bathroom, Brienne standing guard at the door and reassuring her that her family was going to be okay. Tormund was no easy man to take down and he would help them with any trouble that might arise, a caveat to the trade of owning a bar, she admitted. But Sansa felt as though Brienne’s words were muffled, her eyes flitting back and forth between the patch of her perfectly plaited hair that now stood in a complete disarray and the bright shade of red that was gracing her cheek where the man had struck her. 

 

The unfortunate part of it all was that it hadn’t been her first time being struck by a man. Although that part of her life had ended when she’d ended things with the awful Joffrey Lannister. Joffrey was the main reason Sansa hadn’t stepped foot in many bars in the last four years since she’d graduated college and graduated from a girl who was willing to accept a condition abusive love to the strong woman she as today, unafraid of any man who would raise their hand at a woman, but she could admit now, maybe not unaffected. 

 

“Miss Stark?” Brienne’s voice came in a bit clearer this time, the high pitched ringing that came with an adrenaline rush fading as her situation came into clear focus in front of her. 

 

“My family,” Sansa gasped, moving quickly for the door and rushing right out into what looked like pure chaos. It seemed some men had used the flurry of activity to settle old scores, or new. And the entire bar looked like something out of an old western movie, the center of all the activity taking place near the front entrance of the place where she could see her cousin, Jon, trying desperately to keep Robb from landing anymore punches to the face of the man who had assaulted her. Bolton, Brienne has said his name was, was spitting insults at her family, half of his friends trying to drag him out of the bar, and the other half pushing back against Theon, Tormund and the other man that had been sitting with her sister when she’d first arrived, although now she realized she’d never gotten the chance to meet him, as they worked to push them further towards the door and out. 

 

With a burst of speed very un-Sansa like, she moved toward the center of the fighting, observing her brother yelling obscenities towards her attacker and Gendry holding her little sister back with one arm hooked around her middle and the other sporadically covering her mouth in an attempt to stop some of the more vile things Arya was saying, jeez, being around the auto shop had sure colored her vocabulary. 

 

As she got closer to the action, the push of people all around her got more intense until she was crowded right behind the man her sister claimed she was friends with. Although now that she was up close she wasn’t sure she could call him just a man. He was huge, hulking, at least half a foot and some change taller than Robb and certainly more muscular, more...tangible, seemed to be the only word she could think of. 

 

She reached to grab out at his elbow as he reached forward to push the face of one of Bolton’s friends who began reaching for her in an attempt to stop him from getting involved. The last thing she’d wanted for this night is for anyone to get hurt because of her, and with Tormund and Theon already moving back as the last of the gang of rowdy men made their way out the door peacefully, Sansa didn’t want this man to be arrested for assaulting someone by poking their eyes out for her. She wouldn’t have it. 

 

What she should have been more worried about was catching the elbow that came hurdling at her instinctively. A huge, tangible elbow that swung right back and landed just to glance against her left cheek, the cheek that had already been hit by a man once that night. It didn’t hurt so much as stun. And the last thing she focused on before she lost her balance and fell backwards was the sight of the big man’s face. Gruff, beard growing long and just manly, overtaking more of his features. Handsome, Sansa realized with a gasp of surprise, why she would be focusing on that now was a mite confusing. And scarred, she realized lastly. Horrific scars that traveled up the right side of his face, taking up property where his eyebrow would have been, pulling some skin at his eye, making it appear droopy almost, and as his head whipped back and his hair swung with it, she could see that it has taken most of his ear too. 

 

Sandor watched with equal horror as the beautiful Stark girl started to fall right in front of him after taking the impact of his swinging elbow to her face. Time moving quickly instead of slowly as he reached out his plate sized hands and caught her body in the cradle of his arms, his hands landing just above her waist. 

 

“Fuck,” Sandor barked out as his arms caught most of her weight, not that it was much, as she continued to fall backward, right into his embrace. The huge man swung her up against her momentum and she landed pressed tightly against his body, still within the press of people making their way either back to the bar or out the door. “-kay, girl?” 

 

Sansa kept blinking her eyes up at the huge man, trying to focus on his words and not just his face. The fact that she’d just been accosted pushed aside by the fire that spread where his hands were on her body, and the breathlessness that she was sure was from being in close proximity to him and not the bustle of what had just happened. Sansa began to feel warmth bursting throughout her belly and...lower at the feel of his big hands moving from her lower back up to her waist, just one, or at least one of his, hand’s lengths away from where the bottom of her bra strap sat underneath her dress. 

 

Why was this happening now? Sansa’s thoughts were racing as a peculiar type of arousal she’d never felt before swept through her body. She hasn’t been physically attracted to someone in ages. Sure, she could admit that some of the men she knew, that Margaery had tried to set her up with, were handsome, but since Joffrey it had seemed like her body had given up on trying to find its mate. Now seemed like an awfully strange time to be coming back alive, so to speak. 

 

“Girl, I asked if you were okay?” The deeply gruff voice of the huge man asked her, her head tilted all the way up to meet his gaze when she realized he was asking her a question. 

 

“I’m fine, thank you.” She answered automatically, gasping as she lost her balance when Arya pushed past her to go yell out the door towards the group of drunken men that were walking away, Gendry close behind to whisk her away with one arm, an apologetic grin on his face as he pushed the young spitfire towards the bar, murmuring promises of one last drink before they went home. 

 

“Don’t be so fucking polite, girl. Are you okay? You took a sound hit from that idiot cunt, and then another from my elbow.” Sandor stooped down just a couple of inches, surprised at how tall this beautiful woman actually was. Usually he towered over women, like he did her younger sister, in ways that terrified them. But for as skinny as she was, the girl stood strong and tall, and as he steadied her so that he could remove his hands from her, she righted herself quickly. 

 

“I promise, I’m good.” Sansa had to stop herself from pouting as his big hands left her body, retreating back to his own body and taking two very clear steps back from her as her family and friends descended upon her. “You guys, I’m okay, I swear. It was just some idiot drunk,” Sansa tried reassuring Margaery as her best friend wrapped her arms around her middle, while Robb used one hand to turn her face side to side by his grip on her chin to see what the prick had done to his baby sister. “And besides, I had my knight in shining armor to come to my rescue,” Sansa said, sweetly, turning her gaze to the tall blonde woman that owned the bar. “Thank you, Brienne.” 

 

“No thanks necessary, Sansa,” Brienne responded, pushing her husband’s wandering hands from her body, knowing that he got rather keyed up watching her get protective over people and getting into a physical altercation of his own. “I can promise you, he and his friends will not be welcome into this establishment again,” 

 

“They damn well better not be,” came the growl from behind Sansa, the big man, who she hadn’t yet met. 

 

“You should have flattened his fucking head, Clegane!” Arya’s response was yelled from the bar, a pint in each hand as she made her way over and gave the darker brew to the tall man,  _Clegane_ , she had said. 

 

“You’re not wrong, girl.” 

 

“Alright,” Tormund interrupted coming over with arms full of bottled beer and passing them around. “To drinking the memory of that unpleasantness away,” he started lifting his own beer in toast, “and to strong women. May they never realize that they don’t need us.” 

 

“Hear, hear!” 

 

* * *

 

“No!!! Sansie, don’t leave us!” Margaery whined, as she reached for Sansa from her spot in Robb’s arms. “It’s just getting fun!” Sansa smiled at her best friend, even as she watched her brother pull her completely back into his lap and her attention was captured by him again. 

 

“I’m knackered, Marg. But stay and have fun!” Sansa, put her coat on, pulling her hair out of her collar and frowning when every man in their group stood up as if to walk her out. “No, you guys! Seriously, stay. I can walk out to the parking lot by myself. My car’s just in the front row.” That got Theon and Jon to sit down but not Tormund or the huge man, who she had been introduced to as Sandor Clegane, a coworker of Gendry and Tormund’s. “I promise, I’m-“ 

 

“I’m heading out anyway, Giantsbane. I’ll walk her out.” Sandor announced, putting a hand on the ginger man’s shoulder and pushing down, then stepping around the group who were all saying their goodbyes to Sansa and ignoring the arching eyebrow that Arya was sending his way. 

 

“Good night, love birds,” Margaery teased, laughing sharply at Sansa’s eye roll and Sandor’s huff. They made their way out the front door, Sandor walking to the right and behind Sansa so that she would be further away from his scars. They walked in silence the short amount of time to Sansa’s bright red mini cooper, a fitting choice for her, he thought. He waited a short distance away from her car, as she walked towards the driver side door and stood in front of it, unmoving for a long several minutes. He stood there unmoving as well, until she turned back to him abruptly, her mouth opening and closing as if she wanted to say something to him but either couldn’t find the words or was struggling with whether or not to say it. 

 

“Well, spit it out, girl. I don’t have all bloody night.” Sandor snapped, frowning when he noticed her flinch at his barking voice. She started speaking again, chirping out a few words at time, but none in any order that made any sense. “Little bird, just say what you have to say and get on with it.” He sighed, expecting a reluctant thank you or perhaps a timid demand for an apology for hitting her, he’d almost forgot about that. 

 

“I don’t want to go home.” Sansa finally spit out, watching as Sandor’s one eyebrow lifted in surprise. “I mean I did...want to get out of there, but I don’t want to go home, necessarily. I just, I feel like I have so much energy right now. Like, I don’t know, the adrenaline from earlier is just hitting me now, I’m not sure. But I don’t want to go home and I was wondering if you’d-” 

 

“Want to take you home with me?” Sandor bit out, almost laughing when her brow furrowed as if actually contemplating the thought of going home with him. 

 

“No, I was wondering if you’d want to take a walk with me.” Sansa propositioned, gesturing to the harbor that was just behind him, the walk along the edge of which was lit up with solar lights, and a popular spot for a late night stroll. He’d seen many couples taking this walk when he got off work in the late evening and was convinced to come drink with Tormund, but he didn’t know how normal it was to take a walk at almost 2 o’clock in the morning. 

 

“Why?” Sandor’s question was to the point, gruff in tone. His eyes landed on everything around them except for Sansa, sadly, she thought. The world must not have been kind to this big, beautiful but scarred man. Sansa could only imagine what had happened to him to receive those scars and how the people around him had reacted in the aftermath. She was no stranger to the fact that people could be cruel. But she was no believer in outsides matching insides. She knew all too well that the most beautiful of people could also be the most cruel. 

 

“Because you’re kind,” Sandor snorted and Sansa laughed at his reaction. “You are, I can tell. Underneath the whole prickly thing. And I don’t want to be alone right now and honestly, you’re better company than the whole lot back there. Or not as chatty at any rate.” She could see the struggle happening internally for him, his eyes going from her to the walkway along the harbor. “C’mon, Sandor, please.” He almost stopped breathing when he heard her say his name, it rolled so effortlessly off of her tongue, so natural. “Please,” 

 

“Alright then, little bird. Get to walking.” 

 

* * *

 

“It never felt like a viable source of income, but now I’m doing it full time, so I guess it is.” Sansa laughed, after ending her whole tirade on the benefits of owning her own business, not sure that Sandor was truly listening to her, but enjoying his company nonetheless. Their walk had begun in silence, but Sansa had never been able to keep silent for long, and after awhile the sound of her voice and his grunting responses were streaming quite naturally. At some point during their walk Sansa had lost her balance on the uneven wood walkway of the harbor, and had reached out for Sandor’s arm and hadn’t let go. His skin was warm underneath his work jacket, she could feel that, and he was firm, steady. She liked that. 

 

“And you’re happy?” Sandor asked, looking down at the beautiful redhead on his arm, not sure how he had gotten so lucky as to have been spending the rest of his evening with her, but not sure he was wanting to question it. It was close to 3AM, later than Sandor had stayed up in years, but he didn’t care much. Her company was better than being in his lonely apartment trying to keep his eyes open reading a book he’d read a dozen times before. 

 

“I am. Very happy.” Sansa responded, leaning her body into him when she answered with a smile. Thinking about how far she’d come from a scared girl in Winterfell, unsure she’d ever leave her room again after what had happened to her during her first year in King’s Landing to the woman she was today, surrounded by people who loved her, doing what she loved, and on the man of the most spectacular man she’d ever come in contact with. 

 

“That’s good, little bird.” Sandor responded, slowing his steps even further as her car and Oathkeeper’s came into view. “You don’t want to end up an old fuck up like me, one year older and spending my birthday with an annoying boy from work and his even more annoying girlfriend, because they’re the only ones who cared enough to invite me out.” He knew he shouldn’t have said anything when Sansa suddenly stopped, her arm slipping out from his and staring up at him with wide eyes when he turned around to see what had happened. 

 

“It’s your birthday?” Sansa’s questions was neutral in tone, but her eyes lit up with something Sandor couldn’t quite describe. He nodded in the affirmative, his body tensing when Sansa laughed loudly and took a running start at him, jumping up and wrapping her arms around his neck. He instinctively settled his hands around her waist to steady her, even as his eyes searched hers for an answer to just what the hell she thought she was doing. “Every birthday boy deserves a gift.” 

 

Sansa’s lips were soft when the hesitantly laid themselves on his. It was light pressure, but her lips burned against his and he couldn’t help but be hyper aware of how every inch of her delectable body felt against his. Her lips pressed firmer when his moved in response, and suddenly her tongue was flicking out to run against the seam of his lips, making her intentions clearly known. She wanted this. This wasn’t just a birthday kiss. No, she could have accomplished that within the first two seconds of their contact. This was a kiss of longing, wanting, attraction. And Sandor couldn’t for the life of him figure out why it was happening to him. Their tongues twisted around each other for a time, Sandor’s hands still bracing Sansa against his body, her breast pressed hard against his chest, her arms wrapped tight around his neck and her toes daintily pointed down to the ground even as they hovered several inches from it. Finally, with one last short kiss to his lips, the side of his mouth, his cheek and even up over the scarred skin on the right side of his face, Sansa pulled away. Letting her arms fall down in tandem with her feet and then taking a step back from Sandor, smiling up at his incredulous face. 

“Goodnight, Sandor.” Sansa brushed by him as she walked towards her car, her fingers trailing across his wrist as she did. “Happy birthday.” 

**Author's Note:**

> oh also...season 8, ep 2. is anyone else dreading next week? they've been way too nice to us so far. i'm scared.


End file.
